Things Went Horribly Wrong

Mission: Failure

Chapter One

The Paladins were retreating from a mission to find something, supposedly hidden somewhere among the ruins on this planet. They had gotten the tip from locals elsewhere on the same planet, as well as a heads-up about some rather deadly carnivorous creatures living in the area.
Finding this thing required leaving their lions, so they did, but had to give up the search after not being able to find it; that, and the fact they ran into some of those creatures, and they were just as dangerous as the locals had described them.
Everyone had managed to escape relatively unscathed, only sustaining a few minor injuries. Well, or at least it looked like everyone. A few minutes had passed, and a certain blue Paladin still hadn't returned, and wasn't responding to radio messages from the rest of the team.
Keith, being the least injured and quickest, decided to go search for him. Hopefully, he'd just gotten stuck or lost, and was fine. It wouldn't be the first time he would've gotten cornered by something. Although this time it was by aggressive, bloodthirsty wolf-like beasts with fangs and some pretty nasty claws. Not sentries.
Again, he had to go on foot once he got closer to the ruins; the area was too small for a lion to easily maneuver. "Lance?" Keith called out, hoping for a response.
Nothing.
"Lance?" He called again.
Still, nothing.
After a few minutes of searching, he found him sprawled out on the ground among the rubble. Keith just hoped he wasn't seeing what he thought he was. Because if he was...that would mean that was blood.
"Lance?!"

Lance didn't respond, not even giving so much as a groan. Blood was welling from deep gashes on the side of his face, dripping into a puddle under him, helmet nowhere to be found. One arm was stuck under a large boulder that had fallen from the rubble. Keith had found him, just not in the state he'd hoped he would.
Horrified, Keith ran over, almost tripping on a loose rock on the way. Looking closer, he realized he was still breathing, but only slightly. Keith sighed with relief. Lance wasn't dead yet. He wasn't too late.
But just because he was alive now didn't mean he would stay that way, and probably wouldn't if Keith didn't do something about it. And do something fast. This definitely wasn't the kind of thing you can just get up and walk away from.
  The boulder wasn't actually that large, especially compared to the others around them, but still pretty big. Clearly, he wouldn't be able to pick this up and move it with his bare hands. So, he ran back to his lion.
Running back, he almost felt faster, like an adrenaline rush. Which usually means you're afraid of something. But what was he afraid of? That the creatures would come back and attack him? No, then he'd have his Bayard out. That he'd get crushed by a falling rock? No, then he'd have a shield up.
It had to be something else. But what? Was he afraid for Lance? That he wouldn't be fast enough to do something? That he'd lose him...forever? Keith pushed the thought away. No. That wasn't going to happen. He wouldn't let it.
Before he knew it, he was scrambling inside the red lion, and flew to the spot he had found Lance. Gingerly, he picked up the boulder in the lion's jaws, setting it down a couple meters away. Then he jumped out, back over to Lance. The arm that had been under the rock was at an awkward angle, like it was bent when the rock fell on it, and the armor on it was cracked. His Bayard was loosely in his hand.
Now that the boulder was out of the way, the next thing to do was figure out how to stop the bleeding. Obviously, he didn't have any bandages, or any medical supplies for that matter, so he'd just have to make do. There wasn't much around to use, and nothing useful anywhere in his lion.
  Then Keith noticed something fluttering in the breeze. A piece of cloth, probably a flag at some point. Sure, it was dusty and tattered, obviously not ideal, but it might just work. So he grabbed it off the pole and put it on Lance's wound, cringing as he did it. It wasn't long before the faded fabric was saturated with blood.
Of course, there were still some scratches elsewhere that had started to bleed as well, and his arm didn't look very good either, but this was the bigger focus. And since torn up old flags don't do well at stopping blood, he'd have to get back to the Castle, and soon. So, being careful not to injure him any more than he already was, Keith hoisted Lance up onto his back, draping his arms over his shoulders, and tried to haul him into the Red Lion. It wasn't too hard until he got to the part of getting into the cockpit, which would mean dragging him.
Somehow, Keith managed to get him up there, and even found something useful, too. He had a random old t-shirt sitting around at the back of the cockpit. Why, he wasn't exactly sure, but that wasn't important. What was important was that this could be used as more makeshift bandages.
  So, he added the sweaty old shirt to the bloody mess, which didn't take long to claim the shirt to itself, drenching the gray fabric in red. Then, careful not to accelerate too quickly, took off.
"Did you find him?" Pidge asked over the comm without warning, startling him a little.
"Yeah, I just..." Keith's voice trailed off as he looked down at the unconscious Blue Paladin sprawled limply on the cockpit floor. Looking at him like this, he realized just how small and fragile Lance was. Kind of like a snowflake. Or a bubble. One touch, and it bursts into a million pieces, impossible to repair.
The others noticed the pure, genuine concern in his expression; Concern and fear. An emotion Keith never showed all too often. Though they couldn't see what he was looking at, they could see that something was very clearly very, very wrong.